As a matter of fact, soreness means that something happened during your training and it is most of the time a good sign. On an average, soreness happens to everybody, but more often to the beginners (or to those who don’t train regularly) than to the neophytes or the seasoned athletes. It also simply happens to the muscular groups that we don’t target often. The best example is to look at those who are doing legs once in a while and end up not being able to walk or seat properly after their legs workout session. Therefore, once we are training regularly, soreness tends to appear less often as our muscles got used to the intensity of the exercises. Many people worry when they feel soreness, especially when it comes 24h to 72h after the workout. Actually, soreness is just constituted by microscopic injuries or tears of the muscles, caused by the intensity of the flexion during the workout. It comes along with an inflammation that makes it painful and can also lead to an overall body weakness.

So why is it a good sign? Simply because when you are training you are seeking the hypertrophy (increase in muscle size and shape) of your muscles. This hypertrophy is created by the repeated flexion of the muscular group you are targeting that, technically, is damaging your muscular cells which, as an ultimate result, will give you the fit shape and size you are looking for.

How about the recovery time? As said, this will depend on several factors such as the sleeping hours, the nutrition, the frequency and the intensity of the workout, the stress and so on. No matter how painful or how long your soreness feeling will be, just embrace it as a sign that you did your job at the gym and remember: “no pain, no gain”.

I often hear people telling me that they can’t be fit just because they are constantly traveling around. Well, when we travel, we all agreed it is not convenient to carry in our luggage some dumbbells and barbells. However, we can tailor our very own body weight workout routines. In that case it is important to master some basic exercises that you can do anywhere such as the planks, body weight squats, mountain climber, lunge, triceps dips, flutter kick, push-ups etc… If you want to go furthermore with your training and you think body weight exercises are too limited in term of variety and results, then I suggest you to buy a packable workout gear such as a resistance bands, a skipping rope, a foam roller or even a sling trainer (e.g. TRX), this kind of equipment is light, easy to carry on, easy to use and it can be installed quickly everywhere on the doors, walls etc…

When you are traveling, the best solution is definitely to go to a hotel with a fitness facility, so before booking any room always have a look at the list of the facilities of your hotel. And if your hotel don’t have any fitness facility? Then you can always search on the internet (e.g. Google map) for the closest gym to your hotel. So don’t let a simply nasty trip being an excuse to stop your training, you have to be motivated more than ever, especially since traveling can also mess up with your nutrition and your sleep habits, both necessary for a good recovery, maintaining your muscular mass burning fat and so on.

And regarding the nutrition? As stated above, traveling can also mess up with your nutrition, too much carbs, not enough protein, tiny portions and late meals. One of the solution is to take supplements. There is several supplements available on the markets, all made for different purposes, fat burning, bulking up, sleeping etc…. However, the most important point is to make sure that your intake of protein is high enough. To make it simple I suggest your daily protein intake to be of 2g of protein per kg of body weight in order to maintain your muscular mass. It is often a hard task when we travel and this is the reason why protein bars such as the Iron Fit Food bars are an outstanding solution. If your aim is to low down your carbs intake then you will go for the Performance bars, if your aim is to bulk up you will go for the Brownies or the Energy, if you are in between and need an all-rounder then you will go for the Original bars. Anyway, always keep in mind that being fit requires discipline and motivation, it is like anything else in life, just a matter of priority.

When I go to the gym I am strike by the amount of people who are spending some 10min or more just doing stomach crunch. Many of them think that they will get slimmer or perhaps get “the six pack” should I say, by hammering their stomach for several minutes in a row. Well, I will never say it enough, we cannot target the fat loss!

So just doing crunch exercise in order to burn out the intramuscular abdominal fat will not bring you any kind of six pack. By the way the scientific team from the University of Virginia recently discovered that we would have to do some 250,000 crunches to burn some 450g of fat. This is the equivalent of doing 100 crunches per day for 7 days.

We also know that to burn fat cardio is a good solution however if you go for a long cardio, such as more than 10 minutes, you take the risk to also lose some muscular mass on the way. Therefore, one of the method I suggest is to work out all your muscles especially the big muscle groups (chest, legs…) and the lower back muscles because they are the muscular group which burn the most calories. And regarding cardio? Well I suggest you to go for a daily cardio of 10 minutes maximum using bicycle or elliptical. Yes, you heard it, 10 minutes maximum, I personally go for 7 minutes sharp and 5 to 6 days per week. That way it will strip of the fat and prevent the lactic acids to make you losing that precious muscular mass.

Finally, don’t forget that doing crunch is a good way to strengthen your abdominal muscles and to give them a nice shape. If you want to have sharp and fit abs, then I suggest you a combination of cardio, diet and abdominal exercise. The nutrition is also important because abs are muscles. So keep in mind that to maintain your muscular mass you need about 2g of protein per kg of body weight and per day. The Iron Fit Food products are here to help you reach that goal: http://www.ironfitfood.com/shop/